Friday, April 8, 2011

April 8th, 2011PleaseCLICK HEREto petition the Justice Department to investigate "magic votes" in Wisconsin.by F. Grey ParkerUPDATE: 4/9/2011 John Fund did the right thing today

An incredibly ugly thing happened yesterday in America. I am not explicitly referring to the discovery of "magic votes" that were previously uncounted due to "human error" in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. That is a factor in what disturbs me, to be sure. More troubling than this potential impropriety is that the previous day's media cycle began with a coordinated series of attacks

throughout the usual conservative outlets making baseless claims of "potential fraud" by Democrats in the race. At that time, it looked like the liberal was winning.

This is the modern, post-election playbook for the American Right. If they win, even by the slimmest of margins, it is called a "mandate." Ah, but if they lose, well then they goose step to their laptops and TV cameras and imply illegitimacy. It is red meat for those who believe that Americans with whom they disagree are, well, not really American.

Prominent right wing commentator and activist John Fund fired the first shot in Wednesday's WSJ. He laid the usual groundwork for mistrust and it was widely linked to by organizations like FOX.

"Any recount will be scrutinized for irregularities and possible vote fraud. A recount in a similarly close race in neighboring Minnesota's 2008 U.S. Senate race stretched on for months, amid charges that some counties counted absentee ballots according to different standards than others did. Al Franken, the Democrat, was eventually sworn in after pulling ahead by 315 votes. His victory gave—for a time—Senate Democrats the critical 60th vote they needed to pass ObamaCare over a potential filibuster."

That no proof was ever found of systemic fraud in the Franken/Coleman donnybrook can't seem to shake the devotion of some on the right that there had to be mischief at work. How else could Franken possibly have won? The shared standard of the conservative movement today regarding suspicion of liberal malfeasance is based simply on the fact that liberals are liberals. This not just a poor metric, it is rather un-American.

Fund continues the piece by reminding the reader of suspicious electoral activity and the disqualification of ballots in Wisconsin during the 2004 national election. There were serious questions raised at the time. Which is why there was a major investigation. That the intensive, months long inquiry turned up major errors but no evidence of the conspiracies he implies is used as fodder for further mistrust.

"The investigative unit believed that at least 16 workers from the Kerry campaign, and two allied get-out-the-vote groups, "committed felony crimes." But local prosecutors didn't pursue them in part because of a "lack of confidence" in the abysmal record-keeping of the city's Election Commission. The police department's report concluded that "the one thing that could eliminate a large percentage of the fraud" would be elimination of same-day voter registration (which is also in use in seven other states). It also suggested that voters present a photo ID at the polls."

This is pretty serious misrepresentation of the facts. It gets better:

"But proposals to accomplish those two reforms have been bogged down in the GOP-controlled Wisconsin state legislature. If the Prosser-Kloppenburg recount reveals further problems in the state's porous election laws, perhaps the legislature will finally be compelled to act."

That's it. Make voting harder. Beware of large turnout because that means more of them will vote. Mr. Fund is a student of the Paul Weyrich school of the right which actually argues for greater voter disenfranchisement. He has made a career of implying corruption and vote fraud by Democrats. A regular contributor to Glenn Beck and an inspiration to the wingnuts, he proudly joined the chorus of those who described the government response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster as a "shakedown" and dismisses little things like the importance of voter turnout. As Media Matters made clear later in the day, John Fund is a "liar." He is also an incredibly hypocritical little creep.

Matt Boyle brought in the reinforcements for Fund over at theDaily Caller via FOX:

"Wisconsin citizens and election experts are questioning the veracity of the state’s Supreme Court race, which the Associated Press reports left-wing legal activist JoAnne Kloppenburg won by 204 votes over Justice David Prosser, out of the more than 1.4 million votes."

Uh oh. Experts? Who are these experts?

"Scott St. Clair of the Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank."

Framing Mr. St. Clair, a radical Tea Party figure, as an impartial "expert" is a stretch of stunning proportions.

I had expected this as a matter of course. With a vote tally so close and a recount nearly certain, it was going to be contentious. Then came the Waukesha announcement. At first and very briefly, some reports incorrectly stipulated that the "magic votes" favored Kloppenberg. Michelle Malkin, one of the more prominent proponents of the "liberals equal vote fraud" meme breathlessly blogged:

"I’ve been tied up with other work and family matters (here’s my Fox News appearance today talking about Marizela), but you have probably already heard the stunning (though not completely surprising) news that some 7,500 ballots were suddenly discovered today in the key Supreme Court race in Wisconsin. I say not surprising because, as long-time readers know, Wisconsin and election shenanigans are like peanut butter and jelly."

"Shenanigans?" Damn straight. It obviously doesn't pass the smell test. But then she had to update her post clarifying that it was her guy who got the votes. Do you think she continued to insinuate hanky-panky? Do you suppose she made another glib remark about vote fraud and Wisconsin going together "like peanut butter and jelly?"

Of course not. She copy/pasted a few paragraphs from the Journal Sentinel and then added the blistering commentary "stay tuned..." One must wonder if she isn't annoyed with herself for trying to get ahead of the story in first place.

How have outlets which in the past most propagandized flimsy charges of liberal electoral corruption responded to the stunning "human error" in Waukesha, WI?

There is no mention of it at all on Drudge at this time. Over at Breitbart's Big Government, Jim Nolte has a dry and utterly guileless report on this being a "clerical error."

Big Government is one of the most foreceful outlets to have pushed the New Black Panther story, a series of allegations without merit that have been repeatedly proven false. They did so as part of a supposed mission to keep elections clean.

In fact, J. Christian Adams, the right wing smear-monger who first spun the phony NBPP scandal was given a byline at Big Government on March 31st following the most recent confirmation that there's no story there. They made sure to run it with a big picture of African America radicals pointing guns because that's "scary." They clearly think that voters should be much more concerned with armed African American radicals than possible institutional electoral conspiracy.

That he gives a wink and a nod to the most dubious electoral surprise in over a decade in America is in very stark contrast to his dogged pursuit of "fraud" allegations in Ohio a few years ago. Of course, the Ohio controversy was much more intriguing. It involved registration forms! Not something as trivial as a reversed decision with numbers conveniently just over the margin required for a state-funded recount.

Jim Hoft, the notorious Islamophobe and Breitbart lackey with ties to white supremacist groups, is also laughing. "Oh SNAP," he heads his exercise in Schadenfreude. Yes, the same Jim Hoft who has pushed the NBPP smear relentlessly. Oh well, I guess we should just assume that because nice, wholesome white-people fraud might be at play we can call it something else.

Hey, Jim! We can say "it's not fraud... it's a "freedom correction!"

Lastly, as it is all I have the stomach for, I present Mary Katherine Ham and her "funny tweet."

To their credit, Hot Air seems to be one of the rare right wing outlets demonstrating partial integrity. They have prominently linked to the group Citizen Action Wisconsin's call for an investigation.

Make no mistake, the right wing media's "so what" reaction to this is simply the most recent indicator that their movement has been co-opted by a fundamentally dishonest cadre of hypocrites. It's not the thought of vote fraud by liberals that makes them mad. It's the citizenship of liberals that they detest. It is the fact that American government might actually reflect liberal views from time time. What they argue is that we should be really, really afraid of is ordinary citizens. Pay no attention to possible establishment conservative corruption. Keep your eyes on the scary African Americans.

The so-called liberal MSM is almost equally disgusting. They aren't ignoring this. It's worse. They just don't seem to want to ask any messy questions. Which is ridiculous for anyone who has respect for the core principles of journalism. There are huge red flags in Clerk Nickolaus' statement to the press. In fact, she seems to be describing both an operational save issue that isn't possible with the software involved as well as acknowledging a security breach!

Now just picture for a moment if it was "liberal activist" Kloppenberg who actually had received the "magic votes." I suspect the shooting would already have started.

2 comments:

Well said indeed!One of the main problems facing 'good conservatives' is this enormous group of disingenuous commentators whose prime function appears to be to whip the vulnerable and gullible into a frenzy. I have tried on several occasions to have blog comment 'conversations' with folks such as 'Female Voter' and 'ConservativeInd', but the dialogue, especially with their 'followers', ends up being an attack on the 'ignorant pinko commie libtard' even after I have explained IN DETAIL that I consider myself to be intellectually aligned with many 'good conservative' ideas, while also considering myself a 'progressive' in matters such as health care, education, science, the environment and a need to respect and support public workers. Then I am seen as some sort of lying 'infiltrator', just pretending to be have conservative sympathies so that I can manipulate them towards my heinous progressive agenda. These people are frightening!